The present invention is in the general field of location tracking services and is particularly suitable for vehicle tracking.
Tracking the location of vehicles in large fleets is complex, expensive and time consuming. Technologies such as GPS (Global Positioning System), EOTD (Enhanced Observed Time Difference), Cell ID, AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Service), GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication), CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Data), EDACS (Enhanced Digital Access Communication System) and MSAT (Mobile Satellite communications) allow a vehicle, mobile telephone or other mobile entity to be located. The mobile entity has a communication device from which the location of the entity can be determined. In order to locate an entity, a base station communicates with a communication system such as a satellite in orbit or an array of transmitter/receivers, which in turn triangulates the position of the entity. This is technically complicated process requiring expensive equipment and access to expensive resources such as satellite time. Organizations with a need for instantaneous information on the whereabouts of their vehicles normally employ the services of a location tracking service provider. Such service providers offer access to the equipment and technology necessary to locate the vehicles to a number of organisations. An authorised member of an organisation subscribing to one of the service providers is able to submit a request for a location of one of the organisation""s vehicles to the service provider""s system. The location of the vehicle is determined and returned to the requestor. However, due to the complexity of the underlying systems, communication with a service provider""s systems is normally made via expensive and complex client software. Each service provider collects data using different technologies and stores this data in its own proprietary format. In addition, many service providers have their own proprietary communication formats in which position requests must be made and in which location data is received. This results in confusion for customers who need to consider the various advantages, disadvantages and cost implications associated with each of the various location systems offered by service providers. Furthermore, the software is usually so complex that only a few trained personnel in every organization can operate the vehicle tracking software. The software is often resource-heavy, expensive and not intuitive for the users. Retrieval of data can only be done from a few terminals thereby making the information specialized and highly inaccessible. Furthermore, the differences in proprietary data and communication formats make it extremely difficult for an organisation to customise the client software or to develop systems capable of communicating with the service provider""s systems and accepting the location is data.
There is accordingly a need in the art to simplify the process by allowing inter alia extraction of information from multiple tracking service providers. There is a further need in the art to provide a relatively simple to operate location tracking service adapted for use by common subscribers whilst obviating the need to install and use a cumbersome vehicle tracking software.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for location tracking of mobile platforms, each mobile platforms having a tracking unit; the system including:
a location determination system communicating through a user interface with at least one subscriber; said communication including inputs that include the subscriber identity and the identity of the mobile platform to be located;
a communication system communicating with said location determination system for receiving said remote platform identity; and,
a plurality of remote tracking systems communicating with said communication system for determining the location of the remote platform;
wherein said communication system is arranged to determine an appropriate one of the plurality of remote tracking systems and to communicate said remote platform identity, the appropriate remote tracking system receiving said mobile platform identity and returning mobile platform location information, said communication system being arranged to pass said mobile platform location information to said location determination system;
said location determination system being arranged to receive said mobile platform location information and to forward it to said subscriber.
The location determination system may communicate with a mapping system having at least one map database, said mapping system accepting mobile platform location information, correlating said location information with a location on a map from said at least one map database, generating a map on which said location is marked and communicating said map to said location determination system, wherein said location determination system is arranged to forward said map to said subscriber.
The mapping system may communicate with at least location information system, said location information system accepting mobile platform location information, obtaining location information and returning said location information for association with said map.
The location information system may obtain location information from selected ones of traffic information systems, electronic Yellow Page databases, video databases, L-commerce systems and free advertising systems.
The map database may include maps formatted as at least one of the following: Raster Map in various scales, vector maps and air photo.
The user interface may accept multiple mobile platforms to be located, the mapping system accepting multiple mobile platform location information and generating a map on which each location is marked.
Data forwarded to said subscriber may comprise at least one mobile platform location in a map represented in HTML and an image.
Communication between said subscriber and said location determination system may be over the Internet.
Communication between said communication system and the corresponding remote tracking service is over the Internet.
The location determination system, the mapping system and the communication system may be accommodated in the same web site.
A mobile platform may be a vehicle, a person, a portable computer, a mobile telephone or any other mobile entity that can be tracked or have a tracking device installed or attached.
Each remote tracking system may belong to a different company and supervises a different group of mobile platforms.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of determining the location of remote platforms, said remote platforms between them being locatable by a plurality of remote tracking systems, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) accepting inputs from a subscriber identifying one or more remote platforms to be located;
(b) determining for each remote platform one of the remote tracking systems that is capable of locating said remote platform;
(c) communicating the identity of the one or more remote platforms to be located to the determined remote tracking system(s);
(d) receiving the location of each remote platform from the respective remote tracking system; and,
(e) transmitting the location of each remote platform to said subscriber.
Step (e) may further comprise the step of correlating the location of each remote platform with a map database and transmitting a map having marked said remote platform location(s) to said subscriber.